For the First Time
by stardust2002
Summary: Songfic based on the song of the same title. Set a few months after LDYB part 2. Lee's thoughts on Kara's return. Spoilers for season 2 and a few for season 3.


**For the First Time**

This is a songfic based on the song (you guessed it) 'For the First Time' sung by, I believe Kenny Loggins (I know, I know.) I heard the song the other day though, and it inspired me to write this. It is set a few months (nonspecific) after LDYB part 2 - spoilers for everything up to that point, and a few for season 3 as well, (though I've just gone with the facts and used my own interpretation of HOW those things came about.)

**oooooooooooooo**

_Are those your eyes? Is that your smile?_

_I've been looking at you forever but I never saw you before_

**oooooooooooooo**

His breath caught in his throat as he waited for her to step off the raptor. In the months since the cylons reappeared, he'd been sure she'd died. How could she possible have survived? Somehow, against the odds, she had. When they'd finally managed to come back to rescue those left on the planet, a worse scenario than they ever could have imagined met their eyes - everything had been decimated. Everyone was dead - almost everyone anyway. There had been a few survivors, maybe a hundred altogether, but that was nothing compared to the number of people who'd been slain.

Kara had been one of the survivors. Not that Lee ever doubted her abilities in that respect, but a hundred out of tens of thousands was an amazingly small chance for her. Nonetheless, she'd been one of them. Lee hadn't been on the rescue mission, so Kara stepping into the raptor's hatchway was the first glimpse he'd had of her in nearly a year. That was her? Kara Thrace? She looked so different - so small and weak. So vulnerable. So ... not Starbuck. But her eyes met his and slow smile spread across her face. A very small smile, but a smile nonetheless.

Lee's eyes were stuck to hers through - those frank, usually laughing hazel-green eyes were filled with a depth of sorrow he'd never seen before. It struck him like a shot in the chest - Starbuck had happily given her notice and gone to the planet. Only Kara came back.

**ooooooooooooooo**

_Are these your hands? Holding mine? _

_Now I wonder how I could have been so blind_

**ooooooooooooooo**

Their eyes held each other's for what seemed like an eternity before she stepped down onto Galactica's decks, straight into his arms. It burned him like fire to feel the touch of her body against his again. he felt like a man dying of thirst who'd just found a deep, cool oasis. He drank deeply of the feeling, turning his face sideways slightly to touch her hair. Hair that had always been soft and silken. Now it was dirty and tangled; Lee was no expert but he felt pretty certain the only way to get rid of those knots would be to cut them out. No matter, she was beautiful whatever happened.

As his arms tightened around her, he felt how thin she'd become - she was nothing but skin and bones. She flinched though and he loosened his grip, realizing he'd hurt her. She was fully clothed though, in several layers in fact, and so he was unable to see what damage the cylons might have inflicted on her _this time._ Her eyes were the testament though - he'd read such pain and suffering there that it made his own brush with depression and suicide seem like merely a bad day.

He was ashamed. Ashamed of himself for running at the first sign the cylons had returned. The logical part of him told him he'd had no choice - one couldn't risk a ship full (or even half full) of people to save one person, but his heart berated him for leaving her behind to suffer. Again.

**oooooooooooooooo**

_And for the first time I am looking in your eyes_

_For the first time I'm seeing who you are_

_I can't believe how much I see, when you're looking back at me_

_Now I understand what love is ... love is_

_For the first time_

**oooooooooooooooo**

It had been several hours since her return but the intense feelings Lee was having just wouldn't subside. He couldn't drag his mind away from her, no matter how hard he tried. The cylons could have attacked again and he would still be just sitting there, staring off into space, thinking about her and what she meant to him. And that was a topic he could research for the rest of his life and still not come up with a concise answer. Or maybe he could - she was everything to him. Happiness, pain, sorrow, jeering, teasing, flirting - she was the cause of it all for him. For nearly a year now he'd held onto the anger she'd instilled in him when she left the military, keeping that hate strong so that he wouldn't have to feel anything else. But weren't hate and love just opposite sides of the same coin? Isn't that why people called it a 'love-hate' relationship? Well, that definitely defined his and Kara's. Only there really _wasn't _hate - just denied love.

And there it sat in Lee's mind, crystal clear for the first time. He loved Kara. He'd always admitted there had been 'feelings' there, but had never clearly defined those feelings, even to himself. But here it was - he loved her. And that explained everything.

**oooooooooooooo**

_Can this be real? Can this be true?_

_Am I the person I was this morning? _

_And are you the same you?_

**oooooooooooooo**

There was definitely something different about her, besides the obvious. She was in tanks and sweats and he could see the bruises and scars on almost every visible inch of her body. It made him flinch just to _look_ at it. He'd been right about her hair too - she'd had it cut short - very short, and she looked much like she had when he'd first come to Galactica.

There was something different about her eyes that he'd already noticed, though they hadn't talked so he had no idea what the cause of her anguish was. No, there was something different about the way she carried herself. Her arrogance was gone. So too, her comfort within her own body. She was tense, afraid, and acted as though she'd rather be anywhere else. Or perhaps any_one_ else ...

Kara may have left the planet and decided to rejoin the military, but Starbuck was gone. And this definitely _wasn't _Kara's world.

**ooooooooooooo**

_It's all so strange, how can it be?_

_All along this love was right in front of me_

_For the first time, I am looking in your eyes_

_For the first time I'm seeing who you are_

**ooooooooooooo**

"Hey," Lee had said simply. He'd had no idea how to begin the conversation now that they were finally alone together.

"Hey," she'd responded, wandering aimlessly around the room, touching things at random. It was as if she'd missed the _things _on Galactica as much as the people. She hadn't said as much, but Lee had been watching her with her old crewmates and it was obvious to him how glad she was to be back among them. Lee knew exactly how she felt - he'd never considered Pegasus his home, even right up to the moment she was destroyed. _He _was glad to be back on Galactica too, even though it meant his demotion and the fact that he'd be serving directly under his father again. One of the ships had had to be sacrificed in order to win the battle with the cylons, and he was mighty glad it hadn't been Galactica.

The way Kara was walking around, it was as if she were reacquainting herself with a long-lost friend. As if the two had grown apart and needed to reconnect, physically. Of course, Kara always had been a physical person; Lee knew that only too well, and he wished, in spite of himself, that she wanted to reconnect with him too. Physically.

"How's Dee?" she asked shortly, interrupting his musings about her. _Dee who? _he thought, and his mind struggled sluggishly to remember why that name sounded familiar. Right, her. His girlfriend, or rather, ex-girlfriend. She'd dumped him some time ago, after he'd turned bitter and disillusioned towards everything. He'd continued to exist because that was his job, but he hadn't really been living since the colonization of the planet and obsolesence of the battlestars to protect the people. She'd moved on and left him to fester in the wounds his friends _and loved ones _had created by deserting him.

"Guess she's fine. Saw her in CIC the other day," Lee replied noncommittally.

Kara's head turned and she met his eyes levelly. "You two aren't together anymore?"

"Nope. Haven't been for a long time."

"Oh."

**ooooooooooooooooooo**

_I can't believe how much I see when you're looking back at me_

_Now I understand what love is ... love is_

_For the first time_

**oooooooooooooooooo**

"I'm sorry about Samuel," Lee offered sadly.

A trace of sorrow shadowed her eyes, then they turned clear again. "Me too."

"How long ago ...?" Lee asked delicately, not wanting to probe but needing to know.

"Two months," she said shortly, turning away from him. "Long enough."

"I'm sorry I couldn't help ..."

"Don't worry about it. There's nothing you could have done. It wasn't the pneumonia that killed him." She turned to face him squarely. "It was _them._"

His face registered shock.

She continued on. "It was better that way. He was dying slowly, inch by inch, coming closer and closer to choking to death every time he coughed." Her voice wavered. "It was terrible to watch."

"I can't even begin to imagine what it was like." He put a hand on her arm comfortingly. "I'm so sorry Kara."

She turned to face him, eyes filling with tears. "Are you? Are you really?" she asked, only a trace of the usual sarcasm in her tone.

"I am," he said earnestly. "I'm truly sorry." And he realized in that moment that his words _were _true, though he wasn't sure he'd meant them to be. He loved her, but so had Sam, and his death had caused her such pain. He _was _sorry that she'd lost someone she'd loved, the one stable thing in her life that she'd clung to, and even been wiling to toss aside everything else for.

_That _was what love was - caring for someone so much that you were willing to sacrifice anything to make that person happy. Even if it meant you had to suffer.

**oooooooooooooooooo**

_Such a long time ago I had given up on finding that emotion ever again_

_But you're here with me now, yes I found you somehow and I've never been so sure_

**oooooooooooooooooo**

His heart shattered as she melted into his arms, tears trickling down the back of his neck. Lee knew - her tears were partly tears of sorrow for her dead husband, but mainly tears of joy that Lee understood and had forgiven her. Their relationship had always been odd that way - they'd always needed each other's approval, even when what they were doing didn't concern the other at all. They were connected, joined by something invisible, insubstantial but stronger than the toughest steel. It had flexed may times but hadn't broken, and never would.

As Kara pulled him closer and sobbed on his shoulder, he knew. It was love. They had gone their separate ways and fought about it, but now they were together again and nothing could separate them. It sounded corny but _they_ were just meant to be. They'd both tried to deny it, and had tried being with others but it just wasn't the same. The joy Lee felt at having her in his arms again was something he could barely contain. Even though Kara was crying there was a smile plastered to his face that he didn't think would ever come off.

**ooooooooooooooooo**

_And for the first time I am looking in your eyes_

_For the first time I'm seeing who you are_

**ooooooooooooooooo**

"Hey Lee," she called out. Lee turned around and looked questioningly at her. "I'm headed to the gym. You wanna join me?"

Lee smiled. "And miss a chance to see you hot and sweaty? Never."

She punched him playfully and they linked arms. "You planning on licking the sweat off when I'm done?" she teased.

"Oh, could I? I've always wanted to," he joked back, light-hearted at the return of the old banter between them. It was something he'd sorely missed.

"If you let me win I might even let you," she said, winking, then took off like a shot. Lee chased after, catching up quickly and grabbing her round the waist. They both fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs, laughing. Once the laughter subsided, they lay side by side, and Lee propped himself up on one elbow to look deeply in Kara's eyes. What he saw there prompted him to follow his heart. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. Kara responded, kissing back lightly, letting him know he'd done the right thing. He smiled at her, eyes shining with happiness at the promise their kiss held. The promise of things to come in their future. Together.

**oooooooooooooooo**

_I can't believe how much I see when you're looking back at me_

_Now I understand what love is ... love is_

_For the first time_

**oooooooooooooooo**

_The End_


End file.
